SK Telecom, Earthlink Make Tie-Up Official

SK Telecom and Earthlink have finalized the terms of their agreement to create SK-Earthlink, starting with a $440 million investment. The venture is expected launch CDMA EV-DO high speed data handsets and services in the third quarter. Although Sprint and Verizon were both mentioned initially, SK-Earthlink still has not announced which carriers they will partner with to provide the high speed network. It is now being reported Sprint will be the "main partner."

The relationship between Earthlink and Sprint goes back years... (That said, Earthlink also has more recent ties to VZW for laptop and Blackberry service.) Between that and SPCS being the more MVNO-friendly of the two, I'd expect SK-Earthlink to use "mainly Sprint".